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I am so excited to bring this to the web! Â I’m even more excited to put the work of a true DIY artisan out there to the world. Â All I know is that you need to hire this guy if you have something that needs done like he can do.

I want you to meet Mac Millan – I met Mac at SETC 2011 in Atlanta this year when I was judging the Student Design competition. Â I was so taken with Mac’s inventions that I asked for images and video so that the JimOnLight.com Community and the world could see the skill and mastery put into these devices that Mac built.

You might see these and say STEAMPUNK – I see them and say awesome. Â Makers and DIY’ers, take notice! Â These raygun props are electrified, illuminated, special effect pieces of genius. Â Congratulations on a great project, Mac!

From the creator’s mouth:

Ok, letâ€™s get this out of the way.

Steampunk.

Yes, these are steampunk as hell, and while I love the aesthetics of a lot of what comes out of the steampunk culture I donâ€™t wake up in the morning thinking about zeppelins (unless weâ€™re talking about the sandwich, Iâ€™m always thinking about the sandwich).

Anyway, back to the matter at hand: three steampunk-as-hell rayguns. These were all built almost entirely out of found objects I had already accumulated in my apartment (Iâ€™m a packrat with expensive taste). The initial inspiration came from the silver Thor power drill seen in the smallest of the three rayguns; I inherited a similar drill from my Grandfather, and from the second I saw it I couldnâ€™t help envisioning an art deco pistol of some sort. I purchased a duplicate to avoid destroying an heirloom, glued a photo enlarger I found on the street to the end and filled it with LEDs and flash cannons.

The second model is the orange and brown number, built on a Thor-Nado electric jackhammer purchased off Ebay in high school paired with a photo enlarger. The third is an ellipsoidal stage light and a photo enlarger salvaged from my high school. See a pattern yet? Again, the major structural components for all three were things I had lying around, I just glued and bolted them together and added blinky lights.

On the how and why: Iâ€™m a very hands-on learner, and working with my hands is how I clear my head. I wanted to learn more about motors, LEDs, lights and mechanics, so I started making rayguns. A desire to actually use some of the hundreds of pounds of industrial detritus filling my apartment may also have been involved. Specifics are for another day, but let me just say there was a lot of wire and glue involved. A LOT of glue. And let me just say, gluing a nonporous material to a nonporous material SUCKS.

Check out this video – Mac’s rayguns light up, they have smoke effects built in, and one of them fires a magic flash!

Check this out – Hack-N-Mod posted this completely fantastic upright piano modification – the piano case was gutted, a synth and keyboard were stuck in (and a whole bunch of LEDs), and some of it was motorized.Â Amazing!

One of the DIY geek blogs I follow is Hacked Gadgets – Hacked Gadgets Forums always have all kinds of great projects, and it’s an addicting read once you get into it.Â One of the projects that have piqued my interest lately is a project by Hacked Gadgets author Alan Parekh.Â Alan’s post is about an RGB LED monitor backlight system that is controllable via a series of toggles.

All in all, it’s what seems to be a relatively simple project.Â I’d love to see this with some color mixing capabilities – some kind of arduino system or mini-pots in the control.Â Cool project!

Being the dork that I am, building my own computers and such, I read a blog called Hack N’ Mod – they posted an article not too long ago with some awesome LED projects showcased, like LED clothing, reactive LED mods, and a few really interesting LED ideas.Â Check it out here.